HV 



[pp To encourage an extensive circulation this pamphlet is sold at the 
low price of 12£ cents single, or $10 per hundred. 



AN EXAMINATION 



mm i&tra 



OF THE 



<£ommottto*altf) of J&assacfmsttts, 



BOSTON: 

SOLD BY CROCKER & BREWSTExl,— LINCOLN & EDMANDS,— PERKINS & 

MARVIN,— JAMES LORING,-5tUSSELL, ODIORNE & CO.,— AND 

ALLEN & TICKNOR, &c. &c. 







Gass H N ^ Q * fa 






"LICENSED HOUSES." 



AN EXAMINATION 



THE LICENSE LAW 



(ftommontoealt?) of Massachusetts. 



First published in the Boston Courier, Dec. 1833. 



BY M. L. V. 



BOSTON: 

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY J. FORD, 27, CONGRESS STREET. 



1833. 

J 



•W\.<tLfc 



PREFACE 



Intemperance will undoubtedly continue to pour forth 
upon the world its annual issues of misery and crime, disease 
and death, in defiance of the very best laws which a legisla- 
ture can devise ; until the executive officer is sustained in the 
enforcement of those laws, by the ^popular opinion, the moral 
sense of the community. 

This is unquestionably true. But, does it follow from this 
that a legislature should accommodate its laws, upon this all- 
important subject, to the wasting and waning morality of any 
age or nation ? Assuredly not. If the legislature of a com- 
monwealth will not lift a finger in the cause of temperance, 
it should, at least, stand neutral, in this great cause of humani- 
ty, in which fifteen hundred thousand respectable citizens are 
arrayed on the one hand, and a phalanx of drunkards and 
drunkard-makers, on the other : it ill becomes the legislative 
assembly of any one of the New England States to throw its 
palladium over the shoulders of iniquity. — We invite the 
calm and impartial, to an examination of the license law of 
the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 



LICENSED HOUSES. 



NUMBER I. 



There are minds so constituted as to be bullet-proof against 
the powers of reason, when excited by a suspicion of selfish mo- 
tive, however slight, against the statesman, the preacher, or the 
essayist ; as though the very best reason were unable to rest upon 
its own support. It is, of course, our wish to persuade ; and we 
are unwilling to diminish the humble measure of our power, what- 
ever it may be, by a suspicion of any improper motives in relation 
to the subject of discussion. We believe those motives to be 
single and upright ; we belong not to the " self-styled temperance 
party" The society has our entire respect, but it happens that 
we are not among its members. In this city we have been rear- 
ed ; here we were born ; here are the ashes of our ancestors ; and 
here, we have no doubt, our children will rise into life ; and them- 
selves, in God's good time, be gathered to their fathers. We 
stand, in various relations of an interesting character, which make 
it desirable to preserve the purity of the moral atmosphere, for our 
own enjoyment, and that of our descendants. There are higher 
and holier considerations for this object, which ought to exist in 
every bosom. — We have no private or personal motives for this 
discussion. We have nothing to buy or to sell, the price of which 
is likely to be advanced by the exclusion of ardent spirit ; except- 
ing it be true, and most probably it is, that real property, in which 
we have a little interest, is likely to be worth more, in a city of 
steady habits, than in a tippling community. We have no other 
motive than a sincere desire to contribute to the public good. 



Upon the very threshold, we have been half inclined to hesi- 
tate, and inquire, Cui bono ? Who is likely to be benefited by 
any lucubrations of ours, on a subject which has attracted the 
attention, and employed the powers of eminent physicians, civil- 
ians, and divines 1 A great moral nuisance is not easily abated, 
when various and complicated interests are allied for its support. 
We have hitherto conceived it to be far more important for the 
advocates of temperance to aim at the hearts, rather than at the 
heads of their opponents. The effects of intemperance are suffi- 
ciently understood ; and the influence of dram-shops in produc- 
ing these effects can never be mistaken. It surely cannot be ne- 
cessary to linger here, for the demonstration of these simple posi- 
tions. The reports of temperance societies, year after year, are 
setting the whole matter before the world in every possible variety 
of form, and proving to mankind, that the fairest issues of intem- 
perance, are degradation, and disease, and beggary, and death. 
The voluntarius damon, as the drunkard is styled by Sir Edward 
Coke, may be found of every age and sex, and of every rank in 
society. Our prisons and our houses of correction are the cus- 
tomary stopping places of many, on their journey to the grave, and 
first, in some cases, to the gallows. It is stated, in the appendix 
to a report of a committee of the Massachusetts Society for the 
Suppression of Intemperance, June 3, 1831, that between June, 
1823, and July, 1829, three thousand and thirty-four persons were 
committed, by the Boston Police Court alone, to the House of Cor- 
rection, of whom FOURTEEN HUNDRED AND EIGHTY- 
FOUR were common drunkards ! And it is fair to infer, that 
the remainder, who were committed as lascivious persons and 
vagabonds, were not remarkable for temperance. And, at whose 
hands, did this elite of misery receive the means of their destruc- 
tion 1 At the hands of the vendors of spirituous liquors ; the dram- 
selling party, who are so tenacious of their inalienable rights to 
live by the death of others ; those ministers of a modern Jugger- 
naut, whose daily sacrifice is human flesh. We cannot suffi- 
ciently retain in our memories the names and local habitations of 
a numerous corps ; and we very naturally inquire what is their 
number? In the year 1830, alone, the number of licenses, 
granted by the Mayor and Aldermen, in the city of Boston, was 
SIX HUNDRED AND NINETY. The statute for the regu- 



lation of licensed houses, to which we propose to invite the public 
attention, and which is now the law of the commonwealth, was 
not then in existence ; but the rule of conduct for the Mayor and 
Aldermen, in this matter of license, was the same, mutatis mutan- 
dis, which had been the rule of conduct, for the selectmen, under 
the former statutes. The approval of a petitioner, by the select- 
men, had been immemorially a sine qua non, and the Court of 
Sessions could grant no license without it. The very nature of 
the recommendation, required of the selectmen, implied that the 
legislature expected them to institute a careful and particular in- 
quiry into the character and qualifications of the candidate ; he 
could not be licensed unless the selectmen recommended him " as 
a person of sober life and conversation, and suitably qualified and 
provided for that employment, and attached to the constitution 
and laws." With all this, the petitioner was by no means cer- 
tain of a favorable reception before the Court of Sessions ; for 
the law explicitly provided that the Justices of that Court "should 
not license more persons in any town to keep houses of common 
entertainment, or to retail spirituous liquors than they shall judge 
necessary, for the receiving and refreshment of travellers and 
strangers, and to serve the public occasions of such town, or are 
necessary for the public good." Such were the requirements of 
the statutes of 1787, and the additional acts which were in force, 
until March, 1832. Until December, 1816, licenses were grant- 
ed to tavern-keepers and retailers, and to no other description of 
persons. In the acts of parliament, colony laws, and statutes of 
the commonwealth, tavern-keepers are variously denominated tav- 
erners, innholders, and common victualers — these words meaning 
one and the same thing. Until December, 1816, all taverners, 
innkeepers, and common victualers, were " at all times to be fur- 
nished with suitable provisions and lodgings, for the refreshment 
and entertainment of strangers and travellers, pasturing and stable 
room, hay and provender (saving that in populous sea-port towns, 
stable room, hay and provender only are required) for their horses 
and cattle, under penalty of being deprived of their license." In 
December, 1816, an act was passed, applicable to the town of 
Boston alone, of which act it is not easy to speak as it deserves. 
Its provisions are diametrically opposite to all the accumulated 
wisdom, and to all the statutes, and to all the moral and religious 



8 

feeling which had been brought to bear upon a subject of the first 
importance, for nearly two hundred years ! The most valuable 
restraints and obligations, which had been imposed by the wise and 
good, from year to year, since the first landing at Plymouth, were 
hacked away, by the hatchet of the legislature, at a single blow ! 
The very anniversary month appears to have been selected for 
this praiseworthy achievement. Hence arose a race unknown be- 
fore, a " nova progenies monstrosa" for which it would have puz- 
zled the framers of heathen Mythology to furnish a parallel. Mi- 
nerva sprang, fully developed, from the head of Jupiter. We know 
not whose head was in labor, when this monster was accouched. 
Will any man come forth and calmly survey the evil, which has 
been brought upon our city and upon mankind, and claim this 
creation as his own 1 Let us pause upon the facts, and see, if 
they will not sustain us, in the employment of exemplary severity 
of language. The statute of 1816 provides for granting licenses 
to common victualcrs, eo nomine, who are not required to furnish 
lodgings for travellers, or hay and provender for horses and cattle. 
It must be obvious, at once, that a common victualer, before De- 
cember, 1816, was a very different creature of the law from the 
common victualer at present. He was, in the first place, always 
a householder ; he was required to be in a constant state of prep- 
aration for the reception of guests, their horses and cattle ; and 
he was liable to the visits, not only of the most obscure, but occa- 
sionally of the most respectable, who might assemble at the inn, 
as members of committees, or for other purposes of business. 
Hence it follows, in the first place, that the amount of funds re- 
quired for the least considerable of such establishments, and the 
common difficulties and losses, to be incurred in a change of busi- 
ness, rendered the undertaking absolutely impossible for men with- 
out means, and a subject of careful deliberation with all : in the 
second place, as his premises were not only liable but likely to be 
visited by men of all grades, characters, and professions, he was 
somewhat in the condition of the innkeeper of Saragossa, who nev- 
er failed to dream of the Alguazil. An innkeeper, a common 
victualer, was a man of responsibility, " of sober life and conver- 
sation" and frequently in the commission of the peace, and ca- 
pable, upon an emergency, of laying down the taverner, and as- 
suming the magistrate. The management of liquid fire was then 



9 

entrusted to infinitely fewer and far more careful hands. What 
have been the effects of this important change ? We are not now 
in the place of those who prognosticate and predict : sixteen years 
have passed, since the admonitory voices of intelligent and honest 
men were lifte'd in the halls of legislation, in opposition to this 
measure. It is for the present age to proclaim the results. We 
have stated, that in the year 1830, six hundred and ninety licenses 
were granted by the Mayor and Aldermen. We beg you to con- 
template their distribution : seventy-two were granted to innhold- 
ers or taverners ; twenty-two to retailers ; four to confectioners ; 
and to this novel order, under the ancient name of common victual- 
lers, FIVE HUNDRED AND NINETY-FOUR ! Perhaps 
this is a great blessing to the community, whose beneficial opera- 
tions we are unable, with our finite powers, to comprehend. 
Tribute, to whom tribute is due ; if so, the powers that were 
are entitled to all the praise. But, if we are right in our po- 
sition, that an altogether unnecessary number of licenses are an- 
nually granted in the city, and the effects are such as we believe 
them to be, the Mayor and Aldermen alone are responsible. They 
are legally constituted the depositaries, in this particular, of all 
the power, and of all the discretion of the people. We shall en- 
deavor to furnish chapter and verse for the statements and opin- 
ions which we have directly or indirectly advanced. We are 
surprised to find, upon inquiry, how small a number of our citi- 
zens know any thing of the law, or the facts, connected with a 
matter of such infinite importance, as the legalized diffusion of 
alcohol in this metropolis. 



NUMBER II. 



The act of December, 1816, was the magna charta of all the 
" common victuallers," of the modern order, in the metropolis of 
New England. We inquire not if this act was the spontaneous 

2 



10 

emanation of legislative wisdom, predicated upon a careful inqui- 
ry into the condition of society, and judiciously adapted to its oc- 
casions. Its origin and progress are well understood. We know- 
it was procured by special influence ; and we are satisfied, that, 
if the predictions of its opponents, which have been sadly verified, 
could have been credited at the time, this statute would not have 
obtained a passage ; and the standing army of dram-sellers, who 
are quite " a party " among us, at present, would never have 
been legislated into being. The opposition of intelligent and in- 
dependent citizens, from various sections of the State, was not 
wanting, to the passage of this law ; but the spirit of New Eng- 
land prevailed. 

Not at all embarrassed by the requirements of former laws, to 
provide lodgings for travellers, and stabling for horses and cattle, 
the " common victualler " can go into business with a stock and 
stand which might be included in the capacious hen-coop or 
smoke-house of an old-fashioned taverner. Were it not, that the 
law requires the common victualer to be stationary, we should rec- 
ommend to some of this valuable class of citizens, who deal snug- 
ly, to establish themselves in hand-carts or tumbrels. The busi- 
ness of some of these men " of sober lives and conversations," who 
are "firmly attached to the laws and constitution ," and whom the 
Mayor and Aldermen have licensed "for the public good" could 
be conducted with a tolerable share of comfort, in a large-sized tub. 
Others may be found in shops of the smallest dimensions, not on 
terra firma, but sustained on beams projecting over the docks. We 
speak now of those who conduct their operations above ground. 
There are not a few who are located in subterraneous recesses, 
where many a tippler, in the earlier stages of his evil habit, dives 
for a dram, who has yet enough of shame to keep him from an open 
application at the public inn. It cannot be said of this abomination, 
that it is not done in a corner : there is not a corner of the city, in 
which a citizen may be sure to escape from the disgusting exhibi- 
tion of its effects ; and if there were, a license to fill the vacancy 
would be applied for in less than twenty-four hours. Licenses for 
vending ardent spirits are not less numerous in the city than they 
were in 1830. They were then six hundred and ninety ; they 
cannot be less, at present, than seven hundred. If one half of the 
\?hole population were in habits of intemperance, among the tip- 



11 

pling moiety of 30,000, there would be one dram-seller to about 
forty-two dram-drinkers ! It is not easy to place the absurdity 
and perilous folly of the existing system in a more imposing light 
Even the reckless cupidity of those very individuals, whose im- 
portunity procured the passage of the law of 1816, would have 
prompted them in vain, could the lawgivers of that date have fore- 
seen the blessed effects of their hasty legislation. The records 
of the past were before them. A retrospective glance at the cau- 
tious proceedings of their predecessors should have taught them 
to pause and reflect, before they ventured to tamper with a subject 
of such infinite importance. They well knew that the existing 
checks and restrictions of the law were insufficient, under the 
best posssible management, for the entire suppression of intemper- 
ance. And what did they do to improve the condition of society, 
in this important particular 1 What new preventives did they 
employ? What measures of wisdom did they adopt, to supply the 
deficiency of former legislation ? The community was already 
oppressed with a heavy load; the legislature laid on relief in the 
form of an accumulated burthen. Every good and sober citizen 
was deeply pained when he beheld, in the town ofBoston, from fifty 
to an hundred shops and taverns for the sale of ardent spirits ; the 
delegates from all the towns in the commonwealth put their heads 
together, and opened the way for the introduction of six hundred 
more! We are thus far speaking with a particular reference to 
the law of 1816. The framers of that law affected to rely on the 
sound discretion and the patriarchal regard of the selectmen for 
the welfare of their particular communities, and especially upon 
the positive injunction of existing laws, requiring the Court of 
Sessions not to license beyond the limit of the public good. What 
did they imagine the thirsty generation of the metropolis would 
care for the selectmen and the Court of Sessions, when they had 
found a perfect acquiescence in their wishes, and obtained a sanc- 
tion for their measures from the united power and wisdom of the 
State 1 It was well understood by the dram-selling party, their 
patrons and adherents, that the legislature was on their side. The 
popular sense was in their favor. It was a vote ! No selectmen, 
who have been willing to be.put in, have ever been willing to be 
put out ; ami, as they were selected for their prudence, and man- 
agement, and forecast, they, very naturally, respected the will 



12 

of the legislature, " as they understood it." It happened, in a re- 
markable manner, that applicants for recommendations were al- 
most invariably " men of sober lives and conversations" and 
"jirmly attached to the laws" especially to the law of February 
14, 1816. The Justices of the Court of Sessions were equally 
discreet ; they were not a rash body of men, who were going to 
tilt against the legislature, and the selectmen, and such a regi- 
ment of citizens, "jirmly attached to the constitution and laws" 
It is highly probable that the fathers of the town have acted upon 
a refined principle of wisdom ; for the effects of intemperance are 
not likely to be very injurious, after all, in a city, so entirely cer- 
tain of being saved, not by the presence of one righteous man, 
but of seven hundred men of " sober lives and conversations." 

It would be a very refreshing consideration, if the existing sys- 
tem of things were simply ridiculous and absurd. It is a system 
singularly disgraceful to the city ; injurious to the health and hab- 
its of our citizens; destructive of the public morals ; exceedingly 
burthensome to the community, in the accumulation of paupers ; 
promotive of crime ; productive of the deepest anguish, in the 
most interesting relations of life ; in a word, it is the rail-way to 
temporal and eternal destruction. And what, for this tremendous 
aggregate of ill, is the counterpoising good 1 Nothing — less than 
nothing — the dust of the balance. A New England man should 
spurn the petty gains of a traffic in broken constitutions and bro- 
ken hearts, as he would turn with disgust from the emoluments of 
slavery. 

Before we go farther forward, let us turn over the legislation of 
our worthy ancestors upon this important subject. 



13 



NUMBER III. 

An impartial comparison of ancient and modern legislation, on 
any subject, involving the matter of public morals, compels us to 
yield to our venerable ancestors the palm of superior wisdom, and 
a higher, holier, and more single-hearted regard for the real in- 
terests of mankind. They knew nothing of steam-boats and 
steam-coaches, nor of Mr. Babbage's machine, nor of rail-roads, 
nor of locomotive engines, travelling at the rate of forty miles an 
hour ; but, in the preparation of laws for the preservation of the 
public morals, they are worthy of our imitation and respect. On 
such an occasion, it may be profitable for us, not less than for a 
painter, to study the masters of an earlier school. How much ad- 
ditional good the community has received by the substitution of 
the statute of March, 1832, for all the wisdom upon this important 
subject, which had been accumulating in the statute books for 
several generations, the intelligent reader will decide. We pur- 
pose, by a simple exposition and comparative analysis, to spare 
him the labor of a tedious investigation for himself. 

The statute of March, 1S32, substantially re-enacts the perni- 
cious law of December, 1816. ' Some of its novel provisions are 
also eminently dangerous to the cause of public morals; and, as it 
omits entirely several checks upon the progress of intemperance, 
which are highly valuable in themselves, and had been handed 
down for several generations, in a series of statutes, all which are 
abrogated by the repealing section of this law, it has placed the 
community in a much worse condition than before. This curious 
law is an. act of the legislature of Massachusetts: so is that law 
which forbids citizens to " offer for sale " any " lighted squib, 
cracker or rocket." " Non omnino dormitat bonus HomerusP 
The legislature, not less than a private individual, may perpetrate 
egregious mistakes ; especially when it suffers itself to be precipi- 
tated into any act, by any "party -" though composed of men 
of the most " sober lives and conversations." It is an an- 
cient maxim never to hurry an apothecary ; and surely it may well 
apply to the legislature of a Stale, whether its energies are called 



14 

into action to nullify the laws of an empire, or the morals of a sin- 
gle city ! If this statute is really as imperfect and as full of mis- 
chief as we think it will be made to appear, it is no great matter 
for wonder— ^the legislature was in a hurry, and the people were 
impatient for their rum. Can any thing be imagined more prodi- 
giously wicked and absurd than the exertion of party influence to 
obtain the passage of a law for selfish ends ; which law is produc- 
tive, to the members of the party, of private emolument, but at an 
incalculable sacrifice of the public morals ? Such we propose to 
prove the existing law to be. In accordance with a suggestion at 
the close of the preceding number, let us take a cursory glance at 
some of the statutes which it annuls, that we may have some idea 
of the feelings and opinions of our forefathers, on a matter of the 
very first importance to the happiness and prosperity of a commu- 
nity. They legislated, not with a view to the profits of a dram- 
selling party, but with a single eye to the public good. They 
considered drunkenness as an abominable sin, and the prolific 
mother of a thousand crimes. They contemplated its effects, not 
with a cold-blooded, calculating spirit, confined to the present 
world, but they elevated their views to its consequences in another. 
The statute of February, 1680, which is by no means the earliest 
of the Colony laws upon this subject, commences with the follow- 
ing preamble : — " Forasmuch as drunkenness is a vice to be ab- 
horred of all nations, especially of those who hold out and prof ess 
the Gospel of Jesus Christ; and seeing any strict law will not pre- 
vail, unless the cause be taken away ; it is therefore ordered by this 
Court, first, that no merchant, cooper, nor any other person what- 
soever, shall, after the first day of the first month, sell any wine 
under a quarter cask ; neither by quart, gallon, or any other meas- 
ure ; but only such taverners as are licensed by the Court to retail 
wines," &c. Wine appears to have been the comprehensive word 
for the designation of ardent spirit, as it is the word employed 
throughout the act ; though " strong waters " and " rum " are used 
incidentally in the statute. The wisdom of our ancestors is no 
where more apparent in this excellent statute, than in the sugges- 
tion, that " any strict law will not prevail unless the cause be taken 
away." But we, on the contrary, have multiplied the cause many 
hundred fold, by the statute of 1816 ; and, while the very best of 
us are taught to pray, that we may not be led into temptation, we 



15 ' 

are spreading, under sanction of the law, irresistible allurements 
for the uneducated, undisciplined, and irresolute, in every nook 
and corner of the city. At the date of the colony law, the merits 
of every application were decided by a reference to the General 
Court. This would be an intolerable burthen, at present, with 
seven or eight hundred applications for original and continued li- 
censes per annum, were it not that they appear to be granted with- 
out any great expense of time or thought, and as a mere matter of 
course. We ^ have no doubt, that the burthen was greater when 
the representatives of the people licensed " no more than the public 
good required" and gave their grave attention to the only question 
in hand, the public necessity, and not the will of an inconsiderate 
and mercenary party. 

The seventh section of this statute of 16S0 contains some very 
sensible provisions, which do not appear to have been retained, 
even in the act of 1787. " Nor shall any merchant, cooper, or 
keeper of wines, or other persons that have them in custody, suffer 
any person to drink to excess," &c. " Nor shall any person li- 
censed to sell strong waters, or any private housekeeper permit any 
person or persons to sit drinking or tippling strong waters, wine^ 
or strong beer, in their houses," &c. In the act of 1787 there is 
a similar provision, but in relation to licensed persons only. The 
provision now quoted from the colony law embraces the case of all 
persons who get others drunk, gratuitously or otherwise ; who r 
upon public rejoicings, at weddings, or wakes, or on other occa- 
sions, encourage intemperance in others ; and, indeed, to every 
genteel and vulgar entertainer, " who keeps it up," till his compa- 
ny are getting drunk. The entertainer may be a very popular 
man, and have wit enough to keep himself quite sober, and man- 
age his half-drunken " clientes cum clavibus" at the polls, with 
infinite adroitness ; and, not being himself in liquor, remain ir- 
responsible to all law of modern invention. Our ancestors were 
clearly a very simple race of men. The nineteenth section of 
the colony law, providing for the case of noted drunkards, com- 
mences as follows : — " Whereas, this Court hath made several laws 
and orders for the prevention of the sin of drunkenness, and mis- 
spending precious time and estate ; and yet, notwithstanding, great 
complaint is made of several persons, spending their time and es- 
tate by drinking and tippling, in taverns and ale-houses, to the 



16 

great dishonor of God, and prejudice of their families ," &c. This 
statute was passed one hundred and fifty-two years ago. It ex- 
hibits the religious and moral tone of the lawgivers, in the colony 
of Massachusetts Bay, sixty years after the landing at Plymouth. 
The twelfth section requires all taverners, victuallers, and ordina- 
ries, within a mile of the meeting-house, in any town, where week- 
day lectures are held, to clear their houses, during the hours of 
service, of all persons able to go to meeting, saving strangers and 
travellers. It is to be remarked that the statute contains no simi- 
lar provision, in respect to the Sabbath, though such a provision 
will be found in the province law of 1698. The omission to legis- 
late on such a matter resembles the omission of the Athenians to 
provide a law against the crime of parricide, which never entered 
into their conceptions. This example of ancient legislation is in- 
troduced, not only as an evidence of the wisdom of our ancestors, 
but to show how very gravely they were disposed to treat a sub- 
ject of such vital importance. The statute is full of excellent 
provisions for the advancement of the public good, imposing salu- 
tary restraints upon intemperance, and not cunningly contrived to 
satisfy the cravings of any party whatever. 



NUMBER IV. 



In the tenth year of William III., 1698, another statute was 
passed in the colony, then province of the Massachusetts Bay, en- 
titled " an act for inspecting and suppressing of disorders in li- 
censed houses, &$c." This act contains many salutary provisions, 
among which is the following : " And the better to prevent nurse- 
ries of vice and debauchery, it is further declared, that the justices 
of the general sessions of the peace, in each county respectively , be, 
and hereby are, directed not to license more persons, in any town or 
precinct, to keep houses for common entertainment, or to retail ale, 
beer, cyder, ivine, or strong liquors, within or out of doors, than the 



17 

justices shall judge necessary for the receiving and refreshment of 
travellers and strangers, and to serve the public occasions of such 
town or precinct ; having regard to the law for the qualification and 
approbation of the persons so to be licensed; and all public houses 
shall be on or near the high streets, roads and places of great re- 
sort." This portion of the law of 1698 was not deemed by the 
lawgivers of 1787, like news on the stock exchange, good only 
while it was new, but was by them re-enacted, almost in the same 
phraseology, eighty-nine years after it first became a law. How 
much of all this has been permitted to remain, by the legislators 
of 1832, we shall be able to see, when we come to the examination 
of the existing law. Notwithstanding the operation of this stat- 
ute of 1698, intemperance appears to have been gaining ground in 
the province, if we may judge from certain expressions, contained in 
a statute, enacted here in the twelfth year of Queen Anne, 1712, 
entitled " an act against intemperance, immorality and profane- 
ness, and for reformation of manners." In the preamble to this 
statute we have an exhibition of the simple truth, in the language 
of our fathers : " Wliereas the laws at several times established in 
the government of this, her Majesty's province of the Massachu- 
setts Bay, and now in force, have made good and wholesome pro- 
vision for the regulation of inns, $fc. and retailers of strong liquors 
out of doors, and for preventing of tippling and drunkenness, de- 
claring that such licensed houses ought to be improved to the right 
ends and uses for which they are designed, namely, for the receiv- 
ing, refreshment and entertainment of travellers and strangers, and 
to serve the public occasions of the towns and places in which they 
are, and not to be nurseries of vice and debauchery , as is too fre- 
quently practised, by some, to the hurt of many persons, by mispend- 
ing their time and money in such houses, to the ruin of families," 
&>c. Then follows a provision for reading the laws against drunk- 
enness, &c. by the town clerk, in every town, at the anniversary 
meeting in March. It is perfectly easy for us of the present day 
to find a sufficient reason, for an exhortation, similar to that, con- 
tained in the following passage from this act of 1712 : " The se- 
lectmen and other principal well-disposed persons in each town, de- 
sirous of a reformation, are hereby exhorted and directed to coun- 
tenance, accompany, assist, and join with the justices, sheriffs, 
tithingmen, constables, and other officers, in their endeavors to dis- 

3 



18 

cover and suppress all unlicensed houses, and vice, immorality and 
profaneness, and for reclaiming the over great number of licensed 
houses, many of which are chiefly used for revelling and tippling, 
and become nurseries of intemperance and debauchery , indulged by 
the masters or keepers of the same for the sake of gain. Be it 
enacted," &c. If the good citizens of 1712 experienced the evils 
of intemperance, in a degree to call for such forcible expressions 
of their sentiments, in their legislative capacity, when the old-fash- 
ioned taverner and the retailer were the only lawful engineers in 
this blessed work — will their descendants in 1832 sit patiently and 
uncomplainingly, year after year, under the present condition of 
things? It may be imagined that unlicensed establishments, for 
the sale of ardent spirits, furnished the principal cause of com- 
plaint in 1712, as they are particularly alluded to in the statute to 
which we have referred. In answer to any such suggestion, it 
may be sufficient to refer to a note, appended to an address, deliv- 
ered before the Massachusetts Society for the Suppression of In- 
temperance, May, 1830, by the present Attorney General of the 
Commonwealth, in which he says, " It is a safe calculation to as- 
sume, that there are more than three hundred persons in the city, 
habitually selling liquors without a license." If this be correct, 
— and no person had superior means of acquiring correct informa- 
tion on this subject than the gentleman to whom we refer, in his 
situation, as County Attorney, — our ancestors had no greater cause 
than ourselves for complaining, of the illegal as well as the legal 
diffusion of ardent spirit. In 1830, therefore, there were six 
hundred and ninety dram-sellers, great and small, in the city of 
Boston, established by law, and three hundred who had spared the 
Mayor and Aldermen that close application of their scrutinizing 
powers, which they commonly bestow on the qualifications of those 
gentlemen, who apply for diplomas to sell rum ; making in all, an 
aggregate of NINE HUNDRED AND NINETY. 



19 



NUMBER V. 

The statute next in chronological order, which it is necessary 
to consider, is the act of the Commonwealth, passed February 28, 
1787, entitled " an act for the due regulation of licensed houses.'" 
This principal statute, with its several additional or supplemental 
acts, was the law of the State, for about five and forty years, or un- 
til March, 1832, when, as we have stated, the present statute was 
enacted. As we propose to examine the provisions of these stat- 
utes of 1787 and 1832, comparatively, we shall say nothing more 
of the leading statute of 1787 at present ; but proceed to make a 
few observations upon the most obnoxious of its additional acts 
entitled, " an act, in addition to an act, entitled an act for the due 
regulation of licensed houses" passed December 14, 1816. This 
enactment, as we have already stated, was intended to operate in 
the city of Boston alone ; and the provision, granting a dispensa- 
tion to dram-sellers from all obligation to provide lodgings for trav- 
ellers, and provender for horses and cattle, had very much the ef- 
fect of a successful motion to strike out the enacting clause of a 
statute : as far as it went, it neutralized the force of the important 
check, contained in that very obligation. Before the passage of 
this abominable law, it was absolutely impossible for a chevalier 
d'industrie, of the very worst order, to become the legal distribu- 
tor of ardent spirits. A vile creature of this description, who had 
no pecuniary means, could obtain no credit, sufficient to enable 
him to establish himself, as a tavern-keeper, under the law of 1787, 
of the lowest order ; but how many are there so hard-hearted, 
among the wholesale dealers, as to deny a plausible beggar a jug 
of rum, for an experiment ! The question of character is settled ; 
he has obtained his license ; the Mayor and Aldermen have 
stamped him, with their sign manual, as a man of sober life and 
conversation, and firmly attached to the constitution and laws ; in 
the spirit of all former laws upon this subject, they could not license 
him if he were not. This very individual may be a vagrant, slough- 
ed off, like peccant matter, from the city of New York ; himself a 
drunkard ; a resident in this city but a few days ; and trusted, as a 



20 

tenant of a small shop, on the recommendation, implied in the 
fact, that the Mayor and Aldermen of the city of Boston have 
granted him a license ! Such is no imaginary case, but one with- 
in the knowledge of the writer. The evidence is at the service 
of the Mayor and Aldermen. But they were deceived by the 
grave and respectable nances of those who recommended the candi- 
date ! * 

The act of 1816, was not only an act for the due regulation of 
licensed houses, but of all the licensed huts, hovels, and holes, in 
the town of Boston ; for it was the Charter of all their worthy 
proprietors ; and so far as it pretended to regulate their useful la- 
bors, they regarded it no more than they regarded the whistling 
of the wind. All persons, licensed to keep and sell gunpowder, 
are obliged to put up a notice of the fact, in front of their stores ; 
and they do so, as we believe, without an exception. All persons 
who were licensed to sell drams, were required to signify their 
occupation, in a similar manner. Yet, notwithstanding the whole 
number of dram-sellers, under the name of common victuallers, 
amounted to five hundred and ninety-four in 1830, no person 
could have discovered more than a very small proportion of that 
number, if he had sought them out under the "painted" desig- 
nations required by law. The third section of this act requires 
that every licensed person shall " cause a sign to be fixed upon a 
conspicuous place on the front of his or her house, shop, or other 
place of business, with his or her name painted, and with the busi- 
ness of Innholder, Retailer, Common Victualler, or Confectioner, 
for which he or she shall have been licensed, thereon expressed." 
And it was explicitly provided, that the license should not protect, 
until this was done. Was it done by any but a very few ? It 
was not. Were any prosecutions commenced ? We should be 
pleased to find a solitary record. Yet this provision was, at least, 
as important as the provision for numbers on hackney coaches, if 
the magistrates ever intended to prosecute. But they did not in- 
tend to prosecute, and therefore the provision was practically in- 
significant. Yet it is not easy to conceive of a more useful pro- 
vision, annexed to a more injurious law. If the omission to des- 
ignate his business passed unnoticed, so might the omission to 
designate himself. It would, of course, become almost impossi- 
ble to know, without a search of the records and proof of identi- 



21 

ty, who was licensed and who was not ; and the private citizen, 
upon whom the subaltern officers of the city, standing, or rather 
sleeping, in the place of the old-fashioned tythingmen, are apt to 
lean for information, deterred by the increased difficulties and 
perplexities of prosecution, would be inclined to pass on, and leave 
the evil, in the shibboleth of certain empirics in political economy, 
to rectify itself. But the dram-distilling, dram-selling and dram- 
drinking party , who had worked their way through the legislature 
of a State, had little to fear from the opposition of the officers of a 
town ; and any obstruction, thrown in their way by any one of 
those officers, would have laid the foundation of a vigorous and 
probably a successful opposition to his re-election. So it has been, 
and so it will be, until our worthy fellow-citizens shall collect their 
powers, and shake off that drowsy indifference to a subject of the 
very first importance, — and solemnly resolve, by an effort, costing 
nothing more than perseverance and unanimity, to wipe away the 
disgrace, and arrest the progress of that moral devastation, which 
has existed so long in our metropolis. 

The subject of this discussion may be very uninteresting to a 
certain description of readers. To females it must be particular- 
ly so; yet there are no members of the community, whose atten- 
tion we more earnestly and respectfully solicit. By the zealous 
co-operation of their influence with ours, we may be able to re- 
move the stain ; and our birth-place, the chief city of New-Eng- 
land, may be delivered from the operation of those causes, which 
are, at present, productive of such fatal effects. Bad laws are not 
likely to give place to better ; and good laws are not likely to be 
executed, in opposition to public sentiment. We appeal to the 
mothers, wives, and sisters, in this metropolis : we ask them to em- 
ploy their influence with their sons, husbands and brothers, to use 
their utmost exertions for the free interchange .of public opinion, 
and for the elevation of the standard of moral sense. Whenever 
it shall become popular to amend our bad laws and execute the 
good ones, it will be done, and not before. 



22 



NUMBER VI. 

The reasons for non-compliance with the requirements of the 
law of 1816, to set forth upon the front of the shop or store the 
business of innholder, retailer, common victualler, or confectioner, 
for which the occupant was licensed, were excellent of their kind. 
During the late war, the hopes of capturing a fine American prize 
were frequently blasted by the unexpected production of a British 
license ; so, when Paddy Mullony or Patrick O'Donnohue were 
caught at last, and dragged out of their dram-kennels in Broad- 
street, and brought before the Court, for selling drams on the Sab- 
bath, which a Common Victualler cannot lawfully do ; the com- 
plaints could not be sustained, because these two gentlemen of 
sober lives and conversations had been sailing, all the while, under 
licenses as Innholders, who have a right to sell drams on the Sab- 
bath. The above names are as fanciful as that of Dermot Mac- 
Morrogh ; but cases of this identical character have repeatedly oc- 
curred. No retrospective evidence could well be procured to 
prove that the parties, complained of, were not li suitably provided " 
with lodgings and provender, required of every Innholder, under 
penalty of losing his license; for nobody had thought of applying 
for lodgings for himself, or accommodations for his horses or cat- 
tle, at a palpable grog-shop, not much bigger than a hen-coop. 
Neither had the dram-seller committed himself, by putting up any 
particular designation of his business. The omission, to be sure, 
was a breach of the law ; but the Mayor and Aldermen did not 
feel themselves justified, by popular opinion, in doing their duty in 
the premises : and the informer, disappointed and disgusted, 
thought proper to turn away from the disagreeable pursuit. Yet, 
in these cases, the licenses had been granted, obviously without 
any sufficient investigation of the character or condition of the 
party licensed. 

But there were other reasons for declining to comply with this 
requirement of the law. There is less difference between a sailor 
and a marine, than between a Common Victualler and a Grocer : 
nevertheless, of the five hundred and ninety-four licenses to com- 
mon victuallers, granted in this city in 1830, a very large propor- 



23 

tion was taken out, by the grocers and confectioners. The com- 
mon victualler, as the very name, and, until 1816, as the univer- 
sal usage imported, was in the habit of providing meals. Some 
of our grocery stores and confectioners' shops are very fancifully 
arranged, and present an appearance of taste and elegance ; and 
the grateful aroma, proceeding from their various commodities, is 
strangely contrasted with the rank and offensive steams, arising 
from the subterraneous dens of the common victuallers. In front 
of every one of these establishments, without any distinction what- 
ever, the law of 1816 required the business of the occupant to be 
set forth, "in a conspicuous place." A common victualler's li- 
cense was more convenient than a retailer's, as it gave power to 
sell drams, to be drunken up on the premises, which a retailer's li- 
cense did not. But the elevation of Common Victualler, in a con- 
spicuous place, over a grocer's or confectioner's tasteful establish- 
ment, was not so agreeable. As the law was their own law, they 
determined, that the construction should also be their own. Yet, 
for a breach of the third section, they were placed entirely out of 
the protection of law. " No license shall protect any person in the 
exercise of his or her said employment, until he or she shall have 
complied with this provision." But this provision was very rarely 
complied with. Of course, the parties licensed were in the same 
situation as were those who sold liquors without a license. Did the 
selectmen, or the Mayor and Aldermen prosecute these offenders, 
who sold liquors without licenses, for such legally was the situation of 
these offenders 1 They did not. The perfection of the license depend- 
ed on the performance of this condition : this condition was not per- 
formed ; but no prosecutions followed. The party, interested in the 
profitable employment of selling rum and other liquors, under the 
statute of 1816, was entirely awake to its interest. No efforts were 
spared to facilitate the passage of this law ; and a powerful combi- 
nation, from the wholesale dealer down to the dirtiest drunkard 
in the city, were drawn together by the commune virnulum of in- 
terest, for the purpose of giving it a vigorous support, and a sound 
and sensible construction, " as they understood it." On the other 
hand, the grave, the moral, the religious, the intelligent, the edu- 
cated, the refined, the overwhelming mass of landholders and opu- 
lent citizens, the considerate fathers, husbands and brothers of this 
metropolis, to all whom it was of infinite importance to raise an 



24 

effectual barrier against the inroads of a desolating vice, — these, 
who were abundantly able, by well-concerted measures, to arrest, 
its progress, remained, with a few exceptions, stupidly inactive, 
and apparently under the influence of a moral catalepsy. But they 
had not then experienced, they simply anticipated the effects of 
this intolerable law; which, as we have stated, is substantially re- 
enacted, in the present statute. They imagined, that intemper- 
ance would not have so wide a spread ! They flattered them- 
selves, that the moral sense would counteract the influence of 
evil ! They ensured the election of their representatives by giving 

them their very best wishes, and staying at home ; while their 

opponents, to a man, repaired to the polls and gave their suffrages 
to the " right sort of men." A man, who expects to live by the 
trade of selling rum, will act with vigor in support of such public 
officers, as he knows will protect him in his Christian employment. 
His motives are intelligible — his object is definite ; a failure at the 
polls may be productive of his ruin. Dram-sellers, by the force 
of interest, become gregarious ; " similis simili gaudet ;" the im- 
porter and distiller stick to the taverner, the retailer, and the com- 
mon victualler ; they stick to their customers, and their customers 
stick to their bottles ; they go to the polls as one man, and are all 
actuated by the same spirit. The good citizens act, in the great 
moral cause, with less concert, less zeal, less industry. The con- 
sequences of immorality are not so susceptible of prospective de- 
monstration. The very good, expected to result from opposition to 
any measure, is but a vague and uncertain object of contempla- 
tion, after all. We cannot grasp it, as the dram-seller grasps the 
coppers from the trembling hand of a bloated customer, and put it 
in a till ! It is not a matter of mathematical certainty. The 
sober citizen confides, with a leisurely confidence, that God will 
do that, wfiich seemeth him best ; and he himself decides to do 
that which seemeth likely to give him the least present incon- 
venience, — as the waggoner confided in Jupiter, and put not his 
shoulder to the wheel. Such was the relative condition of parties, 
in the town of Boston, when the act of 1816 became a law. We 
have not yet done harping upon this backsliding daughter of the 
legislature. The passage of this statute marks an important era- 
in the history of legislation on this interesting subject. The reg- 
ulation of licensed houses necessarily involves the welfare of so- 



25 

ciety in an eminent degree. All the principal acts explicitly pro- 
ceed upon the single basis of the "public good." This old-fash- 
ioned phraseology, which had been handed down, from statute 
to statute, for centuries, gives place, in the act of 1816, to a more 
accommodating expression, the "public convenience." This un- 
happy statute of 1816 may be emphatically styled the Rum Law 
of the Metropolis ; the Palladium of the Drunkard's Rights. 



NUMBER VII 



When a very wicked, or a very mischievous thing has been ac- 
complished, by a few zealous, selfish, and indefatigable managers, 
in open day, and in despite of all the congregated power and wis- 
dom of a Commonwealth, how did they do it ? becomes an inter- 
esting question of speculative curiosity, though we may have no 
special interest in the agents or the act. We have already affirm- 
ed that the act of 1816 was the mercenary act of a party, rooted 
in nothing but selfishness, and having not the slightest relation to 
" the public good;" and that these very words, which had been 
the basis of all former legislation on this subject, had been re- 
moved to make way for " the public convenience." Although the 
sole object of the statute is the creation of this new and valuable 
minister of the public convenience ; the common victualler turns 
out, in the great majority of cases, when stripped of the phylac- 
tery, which the law directed him to wear, to be nothing more than 
a stationary pedlar of rum and other means of inebriation. The 
legislature could have blown the breath of life into the body of 
this new creature of positive law, in one short section, or two at the 
farthest. After exonerating him from the burthen of providing 
lodgings for man, and hay and provender for horses and cattle, 
nothing more was necessary than to enact, that, in addition to 
the restriction as to the Lord's day and ten o'clock, P. M., on other 
days, he should be subject to the existing laws, for the regulation 

4 



26 

of licensed houses. But here is an act of five sections of consid- 
erable length, and filling more than three pages of the statute book. 
In the first section, there is a provision against him, who is guilty 
of presumptuous sin, " who presumes to be a confectioner " without 
a license ; and another against any common victualler or confec- 
tioner, who shall keep open shop and entertain on the Lord's day, 
or after ten, P. M., on any other day. The common course of 
legislation would be, first to create, and then to provide for the 
created being ; but here the rule is reversed ; for the common victual- 
ler is begotten in the second section, and provided for in the first, be- 
fore it is born. But wherefore all this parade of piety — this spe- 
cial regard for the Lord's day ? Why produce a new law expressly 
against confectioners? If they sold liquors, contrary to the then 
existing law, they were punishable, like all other persons, who sold 
without a license ; and the law of 1816 was so much in their fa- 
vor, and enlarged their limits so far beyond their utmost hopes, 
that, in 1830, of all the confectioners in the city, four only took 
out the confectioner's license, and the remainder figured as com- 
mon victuallers. The motive for all this seeming regard for pub- 
lic morals is very apparent. The provision, touching confectioners, 
was too entirely frivolous to obtain a place even in the latitudina- 
rian statute of March, 1832 ; and the other provision, respecting 
the Lord's day, was obviously placed in the first section of the 
statute, for such worthy members as read no further, and who, tak- 
ing this section and the title into view, might well enough suppose 
the act before them to be a grave and salutary law " for the regu- 
lation of licensed houses" and not a craftily devised statute for the 
multiplication of licensed holes and hovels. So, in relation to the 
concluding sections, a legislator, who would satisfy his scruples, 
by a slight inspection of the beginning and the end ; and while 
the act was passing through its several readings, give his attention 
and his time, which are the property of the Commonwealth, to the 

newspaper ; such a law-maker, and the example is very far 

from being uncommon, would be confirmed in his favorable im- 
pressions ; for here is the substance of the old laws, in regard to 
the powers and duties of the tything-men, at full length, re-enacted 
in respect to the common victualler ; all which, instead of occu- 
pying a page, might have been contained in a simple enactment, 
as we have stated, making him liable to all the unexcepted re- 



27 

straints of the law of 1787. There is nothing more amusing than 
the provision, in this and other laws upon this subject, indicating 
the disposition of fines and penalties, to be recovered for violations 
of the rum laws. They remind us of those abundant preparations, 
commonly made by juvenile sportsmen for the game they expect 
to capture. How much money has the county of Suffolk received 
into its coffers from such a source ? Bonds were taken of com- 
mon victuallers, taverners, &c. with a pecuniary penalty. How 
many have been taken 1 How many of these obligations have 
been forfeited 1 How many prosecutions have been instituted ? 
These are questions, which a citizen has a right to ask, and to 
which the guardians of the peace of a city should not only be able 
and willing, but forward, to reply. We put these questions to the 
public officers of the city of Boston. But, lest the good people 
should be obliged to wait, as long as the worshippers of Baal, for 
their answer, we will partially respond to them ourselves. To 
May, 1830, about five thousand of these bonds had been taken ; 
and there was no evidence on record of a single penalty enforced ! 
We have been singularly blessed in this particular. And all this 
is attributable to the careful scrutiny of our vigilant police ! Five 
thousand persons licensed to sell rum — five thousand bonds, and 
no case of prosecution for breach of condition ! The word of any 
dram-seller, in the city, is every whit as good as his bond. There 
is no other profession, in which the same averment can be made of 
a similar number. But these were picked men, of sober lives and 
conversations ! The evidence of the fact above stated is taken 
from the address of the Attorney General, then the county attor- 
ney, before the Temperance Society, May 27, 1830. His 
words are these : — " All persons are bound, in a pecuniary 
penalty, to the Commonwealth. Taverners and victuallers, among 
other things, to suffer no disorders nor unlawful games, and retail- 
ers not to break the laws. About Jive thousand of these bonds have 
been taken by the city authorities, but there is no single instance 
on record in which their penalty has ever been enforced." There 
is a commune vinculum among the crimes, not less than among the 
sciences ; and one draws after it the rest. By degrees, almost im- 
perceptible, we become tolerant of one crime after another, as 
they grow up among us, through the shameful neglect of the city 
officers to do the work for which they are paid, and put them ef- 



28 

fectually down. But the day of election — the day of account J 
Who will go forward in the path of his duty with a steady step 
and a moral courage, utterly regardless of all such mean and per- 
sonal considerations ? The government of a city will do wisely to 
think a great deal less of their own prospects at another election, 
and a great deal more of their solemn responsibilities to God and 



NUMBER VIII. 



In connexion with the subject before us, it is surely the part of 
wisdom to compare the situation of other cities with our own, and 
to ask the question, whether, under the pressure of any similar 
evil, they have concluded to hug their fetters of shame, or break 
them, by a bold and vigorous efTort ; to suffer the cancer to ex- 
tend its corroding influence into every part of the Municipal body, 
or, by a petty sacrifice of individual interest, to extirpate, not on- 
ly the superficial branches, which carry corruption to the extrem- 
ities, but the very core itself. We have shown, that the Board of 
Health of the city of Washington have resolved, that the sale of 
ardent spirit was a NUISANCE, and that, they prohibited the 
sale of it, in that city, for ninety days. This step was taken upon 
the opinion of their power, expressed by Mr. Wirt ; and, no doubt, 
in connection with the prevailing apprehension of cholera. The 
fear of death had become more oppressive, during the prevalence 
of that disease. After the ninety days were past, we presume the 
dram-sellers, more terrible, in our opinion, than all the dogs of 
war, that Carolina will let loose upon the Union, were suffered to 
spread the cause of poverty and crime, as they did before. The 
drunkards made up, undoubtedly, for the time they had lost ; and 
the cholera, when it comes again, will find them ripe for the har- 
vest. Was the sale of ardent spirit a NUISANCE in Washing- 
ton, only because the cholera was there? Assuredly not. But the 



29 

Board of Health restricted the operation of their interdict to nine- 
ty days, to meet the views of " a party :" there is a dram-selling 
"party " in every city. But we have encouragement to hope, 
that the time may come, when such a "party " in the United 
States will be so diminished in character and power, as to ren- 
der admission into the fraternity no very elevated object of human 
ambition ; and when the presence of the cholera shall not be at 
all required, to establish the universal opinion, from the mouth of 
the Oregon to the outlets of the Kennebec, that the sale of ardent 
spirits is a NUISANCE, a nuisance, without any correlative ad- 
vantage to any human being ; for, if the emoluments of the traf- 
fic are collected, as we have stated, from broken hearts and brok- 
en constitutions ; if they are gathered, at the cost and charge of 
inflicting disease, degradation, poverty, and death ; those emolu- 
ments are the wages of sin. In this hope we are strengthened, 
by a knowledge of the fact, that about fifteen hundred thousand 
individuals, in this country alone, have already enrolled their 
names upon the record, as members of the " self-styled temperance 
party" on the basis of abstinence. Cholera had the effect to 
rouse the fears of the citizens of Washington ; it elicited the ex- 
pression of the opinion, contained in the resolve of the Board of 
Health, but the opinion itself existed before, supported on other 
well-known and sufficient grounds. Mr. Wirt, the legal adviser 
of the Board, had already exhibited his views upon this subject on 
another occasion. " I have been," says he, " for more than for- 
ty years, a close observer of life and manners, in various parts of 
the United States, and know not the evil, that will bear a mo- 
ment's comparison with intemperance. It is no exaggeration to 
say, as has been often said, that this single cause has produced 
more vice, crime, poverty, and wretchedness, in every form, do- 
mestic and social, than all the other ills, that scourge us, combin- 
ed. In truth, it is scarcely possible to meet with misery, in any 
shape, in this country, which will not be found, on examination, 
to have proceeded directly or indirectly from the excessive use of 
ardent spirits." Such is an extract from Mr. Wirt's communica- 
tion to the Baltimore City Temperance Society. 

We have exhibited some of the fruits of the law of 1816, in 
former years, in the City of Boston, to which city alone the statute 
applies. The Kalendar of the House of Correction, from De- 



30 

comber 16, 1831, to December 15, 1832, presents the following 
schedule of commitments. 

1831. Common Drunkards. Whole No. 

From Dec. 16, 8 ...... 12 

1832. 

January, 16 32 

February, 13 21 

March, 19 \ 33 

April, ..."... 23 ...... 43 

May, ...... 24 35 

June, . 34 52 

July, 59 78 

August, 98 .... . 129 

September, .... 55 70 

October, ..... 51 69 

November, .... 45 59 

To Dec. 15, 8 20 

453 653 

The master of the House of .Correction, Mr. Badlam, by whom 
this statement is supplied, appends to it a few remarks, which ap- 
pear to us to be judicious. " A great number" says he, " have 
been committed as vagabonds, who might with equal propriety be 
called drunkards, and, probably iv ere drunk, when arrested, but be- 
ing strangers, could not with propriety be called common drunk- 
ards, because their previous character was unknown. My own 
opinion is, that there have not been ten persons committed to the 
House of Correction, the past year, ivlio are not in the habit of 
drinking ardent spirit to excess. It appears, that intemperance is 
almost the sole cause of all the commitments. Those, who are com- 
mitted as pilferers, are almost all of them drunkards : they prob- 
ably would not pilfer, if they could not procure rum, with the arti- 
cles they have stolen." Such are the observations of the master 
of the House of Correction. It is matter of curious speculation 
to contemplate the kalendar, and observe, that drunkenness is in 
its zenith, when the dog-star rages. 

The city of steady habits should rather lead than follow in the 
career of reformation. But the opportunity is lost. We have al- 



31 

ready exhibited the course pursued by the Board of Health, in the 
city of Washington. We have now the satisfaction to speak of 
the efforts, making in the state of New- York. More than one 
thousand societies are in operation in that State, for the sup- 
pression of intemperance. The Grand Jury, in the city of New 
York, are now exerting their official influence to prevent the 
sale of ardent spirit, and for the abolition of the license sys- 
tem. They have expressed their views and opinions in the 
following terms : "It is intemperance, that toe regard as the 
great fountain, that feeds crime, and extends all other influences 
in fitting men for deeds of violence. We have traced nearly ev- 
ery assaidt and battery to the influence of ardent spirits. The 
same individuals, when sober, were quiet and peaceable, but when 
under the influence of strong drink, they were guilty of the gross- 
est crimes. In one case, of the hind alluded to, ending with the 
loss of life, all that were concerned in the affray, ivcre intoxicated. 
In another instance, a wife, having six children, which she sup- 
ports with the labor of her own hands, complained of her husband's 
beating and abusing her, to such a degree, (when he was intoxicat- 
ed,) that her life was endangered. When sober, he was kind, and 
did something towards the support of his family ; but unfortunate- 
ly this was seldom the case. Another case, traceable to the same 
source, was an aged and respectable lady, run down, in one of our 
public streets, by a vehicle, driven at a furious rate ; and the con- 
duct of the indvidual, who was the cause of all the injury, imme- 
diately after the accident, shows how completely this vice extin- 
guishes every moral feeling. It is also the opinion of the Grand 
Jury, that the vice of gambling is greatly aggravated by the free 
and gratuitous use of ardent spirits in some of those establishments t 
which are kept for the purpose of alluring our youth, depriving 
them at once of their money, reason and reputation ; the former 
not unfrequently acquired by improper means. The Grand Jury 
have come to the deliberate opinion, after mature deliberation, that 
if this source of crime and misery were at an end, three quarters 
of the crime, and pauperism of the city would be prevented, to- 
gether with an incalculable amount of misery , lohich does not come 
under the cognizance of the law. The Grand Jury are aware y 
that this desirable result of banishing ardent spirits from the com- 
munity, as a common drink, which is the only effectual remedy » 



32 

for the evil complained of, is not to be effected, but through the tri* 
umph of an enlightened public opinion, and when once the civil 
magistrates have that on their side, they can make the law reach 
any evil, however inveterate : and it is our solemn impression, that 
the time has now arrived, ivhen our public authorities should no 
longer sanction the evil complained of, by granting licenses for 
the purpose of vending ardent spirits ; thereby legalizing a traf- 
fic at the e?cpense of our moral, intellectual and physical power. 
Should the system of granting licenses be abolished, it is believed 
it would greatly hasten the period, when the traffic in the article 
would be abandoned by every citizen who has a character to sus- 
tain, and none but the worthless and abandoned would be found 
engaged in this business ; and they (when unsupported by a more 
respectable class of citizens) would be compelled, by the moral 
power of the law, to desist, whenever the community wills it. 
When this desirable result shall be accomplished, and ardent spir- 
its be driven by common consent from amongst us, the saving to 
the city will be very great, in the valuable time of jurors and wit- 
nesses, in attending courts, provided for the wants of the poor, to- 
gether with a vast amount of a more private nature." We re- 
commend this high moral precedent to the Grand Jurors through- 
out the commonwealth, and especially of the county of Suffolk. 
We proceed to an examination of the statute of March, 1832, and 
if there are any members of the legislature, who never read the 
statute, and we most charitably trust there are, we entreat them 
to peruse it with us, section by section, as we exhibit it before 
them. 



NUMBER IX 



In the first section of the law of March, 1832, entitled " An act 
for the due regulation of licensed houses," it is enacted " that no 
person shall presume to be an innholder or seller of wine, brandy, 



33 

rum, or any other spirituous liquors, to be used or consumed, in or 
about his or her premises, except such per son be first duly licensed, 
according to laiv, as is hereinafter provided, on pain of forfeiting 
the sum of one hundred dollars ; and if any person shall, at any 
time, sell any spirituous liquors, or any mixed liquors, part of 
zuhich is spirituous, to be used or drunk in or about his or her prem- 
ises, without license therefor, duly had, or obtained according to 
law, he or she shall forfeit and pay , for each offence, a sum not 
exceeding twenty dollars, nor less than ten dollars." There is 
nothing better, in the whole statute, than the very first section ; 
and it was discreet, in the getter up of this extraordinary act, to 
put the matter of the first section in a conspicuous place, as a fa- 
vorable sample of the whole. The penalties, in this section, are 
reasonable penalties. The first corresponding penalty, in the law 
of 1787, was twenty pounds, and the second not more than six 
pounds, nor less than forty shillings. We have already exhibited 
the opinion of the present Attorney General of the Common- 
wealth — that in 1830, and, of course, under the operation of the 
law of 1787 — it was fair to infer, that there were three hundred 
persons habitually selling spirituous liquor without a license in the 
city. There are no new preventive terrors in the present law, 
and, we have no doubt, the number is as great, and probably 
greater, than in 1830. The first section has the negative merit of 
not perverting the law, as it existed before, to unworthy purposes : 
thus far, it has not taken off the salutary restrictions of former le- 
gislation; and such is its highest praise : of course, it adds noth- 
ing to the force of the corresponding section, in the law of 1787. 
The second section enacts, " That no person shall presume to 
be a retailer, or seller of wine, brandy, rum, gin, whiskey, or other 
distilled spirits, in a less quantity than ten gallons, and that de- 
livered and carried away all at one time, except that person be 
first duly licensed according to law, as is herein provided, — on pain 
of forfeiting the sum of twenty dollars for each offence; and no 
person, licensed to be a retailer, as aforesaid, shall presume to sell 
any of the above liquors, either mixed or unmixed, to be drunk in 
his or her house or shop, or in any of the parts or dependencies of 
the same, under pain of forfeiting therefor the sum of twenty 
dollars." Here we have, substantially, the provision of 1787, but 
with a most material variation. By the law of 1832, no smaller 

5 



34 

quantity can be sold than ten gallons, without a license. By the law 
of 1787, no smaller quantity could be sold than twenty-eight gallons, 
without a license. Here is an important alteration. The motive for 
this extraordinary change is itself an irresistible inference from its 
palpable effects. The statute, in this particular, appears to have been 
accommodated to the size of the ten gallon keg. There were un- 
doubtedly many, who were altogether unwilling to be seen visiting 
the tippling shop, and who did not feel rich enough to purchase 
twenty-eight gallons of New England rum at one time ; and to 
whom ten gallons would not come amiss, at the wholesale price, 
and received from the wholesale dealer, in part payment for work. 
One thing is manifest, that, before March, 1832, all persons, sell- 
ing distilled liquors in less quantities than twenty-eight gallons, 
without a license, were punishable by fine ; but, under the present 
law, no person is punishable for selling any quantity not less than 
ten gallons, without a license. Instead of " An act for the due 
regulation of Licensed Houses" this act appears, in contemplation 
of the section before us, to be An act for the more speedy and uni- 
versal diffusion of rum throughout the Commonwealth. Here 
again we have the "public convenience " substituted for the 
"public good" We inquire of all reasonable men, why should 
the facilities for the dispersion of ardent spirit be multiplied ? The 
effect of this law is obviously to convert every wholesale dealer 
into a retailer, for every customer, who calls for any quantity, from 
ten to eight and twenty gallons ; and it takes away the necessity 
of a license in every such case. In other words, it enables the 
wholesale dealer to vend a quantity, which would not more 
than supply the requirements of an Irish wake. In 1680, the 
smallest quantity, which the law permitted to be sold without a 
license, was a quarter casJf ; in 1787, it was twenty-eight gallons ; 
and, in 1832, it is ten gallons. 

The second section of the act of 1787, required the party li- 
censed to take the following oath : — "J, A. B., do swear, that I 
will bear true faith and allegiance to the Commonwealth of Massa- 
chusetts, and that I will, to the utmost of my power, defend the 
constitution and government thereof, against traitorous conspir- 
acies, and all hostile and violent attempts whatsoever." The act 
of 1832 requires no oath of allegiance. A custom-house oath has 
been proverbially said to ascend no higher than the cross-trees; 



35 

how high a dram-seller's oath will go can never be tried undef 
the statute of 1832 ; and all preceding laws upon this subject are 
repealed, by the last section of this act. It was required, by the 
act of 1787, that every person licensed should recognize with two 
sureties, and the condition of the recognizance is set forth, in 
form, in the tenth section of that act. It has always been the 
practice, until March, 1832, to take these recognizances. About 
five thousand, as we have stated, have been taken by the City 
Government, to 1830, and no record exists, says the Attorney 
General, of any penalty enforced. Yet the act of 1832, not only 
makes no provision for recognizance, directly or by implication, 
but we are not able to find therein the slightest allusion to the 
subject. As the entire act of 1787, and its additional acts, and 
all former laws on the same subject are repealed ; this act <of 1832 
is the whole law. Recognizance, in the present case, grew not 
up in practice, but was the creature of positive law. The prac- 
tice under the old law, which was in force until March, 1832, 
must have perished with the laws, which gave it birth, that is, by 
force of the repealing section ; and, of course, there is no power, 
vested in the Mayor and Aldermen of the city, nor in the county 
commissioners throughout the Commonwealth, to demand recog- 
nizances of individuals under this act, for the due regulation of 
licensed houses. The legislature was, no doubt, entirely satisfied 
of the fact, suggested by us in a former number, that a dram-sell- 
er's word was every whit as good as his bond. We scarcely enter 
upon the borders of this important statute, before we discover 
three extraordinary instances of innovation : the change of limi- 
tation from twenty-eight gallons to ten ; the omission to require an 
oath of allegiance ; and the omission to require a recognizance ! 
Can it be possible, that the good people of the Commonwealth are 
aware of these extravagant changes in the law? We are confi- 
dent they are not. Aliens were, for more than two hundred years, 
and until March, 1832, scrupulously excluded from this employ- 
ment. They are placed, by the statute of 1832, in this respect, 
on the same footing with citizens. No recognizances are now 
required, by law, of persons licensed in the Commonwealth ; none 
are taken in the city ; and, although demanded, as we have good 
reason to believe, in several towns, they are so demanded under an 
entire misapprehension of the law. What reason can be given 



36 

for such a departure from all former legislation? The penalties of 
such recognizances were seldom enforced ! A sound and sensi- 
ble provision is therefore abolished, because there is not enough 
of moral sense in the community to demand its execution ! The 
abolition of recognizances was an act of complaisance to the dram- 
selling party at large, and the omission to require the oath of alle- 
giance was intended to propitiate the foreign department. 



NUMBER X. 



In the third section of the act of March, 1832, it is enacted, 
"that no person shall presume to be a common victualler, or sell- 
er of wine, brandy, rum, or any other spirituous liquors, to be used 
and consumed in or about his or her premises, except such person 
be first duly licensed, according to law, as is herein provided, on 
pain of forfeiting the sum of one hundred dollars : and if any 
person shall at any time sell any spirituous liquors, to be used or 
drunk in or about his or her premises, without license therefor 
duly had and obtained according to law, he or she shall forfeit 
and pay, for each offence, a sum not exceeding twenty dollars, nor 
less than ten dollars" In the three first sections, we have there- 
fore, penal provisions against all persons presuming to be innhold- 
ers, retailers, and common victuallers ; the legislature, of course 
contemplating a division of these engineers of moral and physical 
destruction into three classes, agreeably to the act of 1816. The 
common victualler is created anew in the fourth section, in which 
it is enacted, " that the Mayor and Aldermen of the city of Bos- 
ton may license, for said city, as many applicants therein, as com- 
mon victuallers, as they shall decide the public good may require; 
and to remove all doubt of the nature of the occupation of a com- 
mon victualler , provided to be licensed in this act, it is hereby pro- 
vided, that all the liabilities, privileges, and requirements of this 
act, which apply to innholders, shall apply to common victuallers, 



37 

excepting that they shall not be required to furnish lodging for 
travellers, hay and provender for horses and cattle" The ques- 
tion arises at once, if the public good really requires, that any such 
agents should be legally appointed and empowered in its behalf, 
as common victuallers, which, translated from the shibboleth of the 
statute into plain English, means rum-pedlars or drunkard-makers, 
why is the blessing confined to the city? Why should it not be 
extended to Salem, to Worcester, and other populous towns of the 
Commonwealth? " The public good" is of as much importance 
there, as in the metropolis ; and if, even in 1830, nearly six hun- 
dred persons were licensed in the city, as common victuallers (and 
such was the fact), and this because the Mayor and Aldermen de- 
cided, that, in addition to the retailers, innholders, the notorious 
phalanx of unlicensed venders, and the genteel and vulgar dis- 
tributors of spirituous liquors for nothing, the public good required 
such a corps of supernumeraries ; if such were the case, nothing, 
but a selfish spirit can lead us to withhold the blessed product of 
such legislation from our fellow-citizens of other municipalities. 
The law of 1816, the great and little dram-seller's charter, was 
enacted for Boston, as a toicn ; and required the selectmen to cer- 
tify to the Court of Sessions, from time to time, what number of 
common victuallers they judged necessary for the "public conven- 
ience." Under the present form of government no such provision 
can apply to the city ; and the present law, which repeals all other 
laws on the same subject, and of course the law of 1816, leaves 
the matter of license with the Mayor and Aldermen alone. The 
whole power is with them, and with them is the whole responsibil- 
ity. Will the Mayor and Aldermen of the city of Boston under- 
take to " decide " that the "public good requires " six hundred 
licensed common victuallers, in the city, in addition to all other li- 
censed and unlicensed promoters of drunkenness ? Assuredly not. 
But the licenses are granted ; and they will continue to be grant- 
ed, until the re-election of a Mayor and Aldermen is made no lon- 
ger to depend upon the exertions of men, who have their own 
selfish ends, and not the real welfare of the community, at heart. 
Wretchedly contrived as the statute appears to be, independent 
and honest officers can find, in the fourth section, no want of dis- 
cretionary powers. They can refuse as many applicants, as they 
dare to refuse. It is their plain, palpable duty to " decide " what 



38 

number of licensed houses " the public good requires" and not to 
license seven hundred, because they have licensed one hundred. 
The fourth section, recited above, enacts, " that all the liabilities, 
privileges, and requirements of this act, which apply to innholders, 
shall apply to common victuallers, excepting that they shall not be 
required to furnish lodging for travellers, hay and provender for 
horses and cattle" It is a grievous thing, that legislators should 
not be able to know their own minds for two sections together ; 
this section, the fourth, is partially repealed in the fifth, which 
enacts, " that if any person licensed as a common victualler, as de- 
scribed in the preceding section of this act, shall keep open his or 
her house, cellar, shop, store, or place of business, on any part of 
the Lord's day or evening, or keep open the same at a later hour 
than ten of the clock, of the evening of any working day, and en- 
tertain any person, by selling him or her any spirituous or strong 
liquor, on the Lord's day, or evening, or any working day, at a 
later hour than ten of the clock in the evening thereof, he or she, 
so offending, shall forfeit and pay, for each offence, on conviction 
thereof, the sum of ten dollars ;" so that all the privileges which, 
in the classical phraseology of the statute, apply to innholders, 
with the exception of furnishing lodging for travellers, and hay 
and provender for horses, do not apply, notwithstanding the fourth 
section enacts, that they shall apply, to common victuallers; for, 
among the privileges of innholders, are those of keeping open on 
the Sabbath day, and after ten of the clock on all days of the 
week. It will be seen, that, by the tenth section, innholders are 
required, not only to furnish lodgings, but suitable provisions for 
travellers and stable room, as well as hay and provender, for horses 
and cattle. Common victuallers, as the law stands, are, therefore, 
equally bound to furnish stable room for horses and cattle, and 
suitable provisions for travellers ; for such are among the liabili- 
ties which apply to innholders, and from which common victual- 
lers are not relieved by the exception. Absurd as it may appear, 
and inconvenient as it might prove to the proprietor of a first 
rate grocery, who has the common victualler's license, to be " at 
all times furnished" with suitable provisions for travellers, and sta- 
ble room for horses and cattle ; there is no escaping from this re- 
quirement of positive law. Of course, such a construction was 
never intended ; but, like the statute of the Commonwealth, to 



- 39 

which we have already referred, which provides a penalty for 
those who offer for sale any lighted squib, cracker, or rocket, there 
it is — any judge may explain, but no judge can contradict it. 
With stable room for horses and cattle and suitable provisions for 
travellers, common victuallers are required always to be furnished, 
on pain of losing their licenses. Bat they have no occasion to 
fear ; the Mayor and Aldermen will give them as little trouble as 
possible. This is the act of the legislature, that is, the statute is 
passed by them, as a counterfeit bill is occasionally passed by a 
well-intending citizen, who means no harm, but is not particular- 
ly mindful of what he is about. But what man could have pro- 
duced such an ill-digested farrago, as the license law of March, 
1832? If the finger of any dram-seller was in this blessed work, 
the whole brotherhood may well exclaim, " Heaven defend us from 
our friends !" It would be well, if shameful ignorance were the 
only offence chargeable against the individual, who has presumed 
to make laws without knowledge, which is rather more of a pre- 
sumptuous sin than mixing liquors without a license. When we 
come to the examination of the twelfth section, providing for the 
case of minors and servants, we shall not be able to find an excuse 
for the unfortunate journeymen, who prepared the statute, in any 
supposable ignorance or oversight. If the twelfth section of this 
unwholesome statute be not a wicked and unprincipled departure 
from the law, as it has stood for ages, in respect to those classes 
which have been most properly the special objects of legislative 
protection and regard, — we know not wherein wickedness may be 
said to consist. If we were disposed to let our imagination loose 
in the field before us, we should fancy the license law of 1832 to 
be the work of some cunning graduate of the dram-selling party, 
whose grain of talent had been hammered out, on the gold-baater's 
anvil, to a considerable surface of cunning; whose experience 
had taught him precisely where the shoe pinched upon the dram- 
seller's foot ; and who had contrived a law to meet the views and 
wishes of the party, without the least consideration for the peace 
and welfare of the community ; with a settled purpose to break 
down all the important restraints upon a dangerous occupation ; 
and thinking of nothing, and caring for nothing, but the all-ab- 
sorbing object of the party, how much money can we make by the 
traffic in RUM ! 



40 



NUMBER XL 

In 1698, the tenth year of William III, it was deemed expedi- 
ent, as a very salutary restraint upon intemperance, to regulate 
even the location of public houses. It was very desirable, of 
course, that they should be so placed, as to be readily found by 
travellers ; but of far greater importance, that they should not be 
located in hidden corners, and holes of the earth, whither the 
drunkard might crawl, like a reptile, and pass his hours, without 
any danger of encountering the frowns of his fellow-man: The 
province law of that year accordingly enacts, that " all public 
houses shall be near the high streets, roads, and places of great re- 
sort." The common victualler of 1816 entered not into the con- 
ceptions of the good people of the province, in 1698. If such a 
legalized minister of misery had then existed, a fortiori the re- 
quirement would have been applied to him. After eighty-nine 
years' experience, the legislature of Massachusetts, legislating 
anew upon this important subject, re-enacted this very provision, 
in 1787, and it continued to be the law until March, 1832. Then, 
together with the ancient limitation to twenty-eight gallons, and 
the oath of allegiance, and the innholder's, retailer's, and victual- 
ler's recognizance, it was thrown entirely aside. It is altogether 
omitted in the act of 1832. Surely, this is not in the spirit of a 
sound and careful legislation. It may not be fashionable, at pres- 
ent, for a public officer, who calls down Almighty God to witness 
the solemnity of that oath, by which he promises faithfully to exe- 
cute the laws — we are aware that it is not popular for such an of- 
ficer to do his duty, in the simple, and common sense interpreta- 
tion of that word. Why not, therefore, for the sake of consisten- 
cy, throw these oaths, with the mass of other rejected matters, 
into " the receptacle of things lost upon earth 1" The time, how- 
ever, may come, when it may be more in fashion than at present, 
to execute sound and sensible laws, for the suppression of intem- 
perance. Is it not, therefore, to be regretted, that wise and pru- 
dent provisions, which have lasted for ages, should be thus merci- 
lessly destroyed, to give place to an impotent, and worse than im- 



41 

potent, to a wicked and unprincipled law ? The sixth section of 
the act of March, 1832, enacts, " That the Mayor and Aldermen 
of the city of Boston may license for said city of Boston ; 
and the county commissioners, in the several counties in this Com- 
monwealth, may license for the towns and district, in their respec- 
tive counties, as many applicants therein as innholders or retail- 
ers, as they shall decide the public good may require ; and in all 
licenses, to be granted either to innholders, common victuallers, or 
retailers, within the city of Boston, or in the towns or -districts in 
this Commonwealth, the street, lane, alley, or other place, and the 
number of the building, or some other particular description there- 
of, within said city, town or district, shall be specified, where such 
licensed person shall carry on his or her respective employment, 
and said license shall not protect such person from the liabilities 
provided in this act, for carrying on and exercising his or her em- 
ployment, in any other place, than in that specified in said license." 
In this section there is a reference to the street, lane, alley, or 
other place, in which innholders, common victuallers, and retail- 
ers may practise their employment. For " places of great resort," 
the last words in the corresponding provision of the statute re- 
pealed, we have " lane, alley, or other place." How admirably 
this strangely altered phraseology is adapted to the kennels and 
holes, in various portions of the city ! It would almost induce one 
to believe, that the rum-dealers themselves had turned legislators, 
and framed their own laws. The seventh section enacts, " that all 
licenses to innholders, retailers, and common victuallers shall be 
yearly granted or renewed, and the term, for which all such licenses 
shall be granted or renewed, shall expire on the first day of April 
in each year ; but it shall be in the power of the Mayor and Alder- 
men of the city of Boston, and the county commissioners, in their 
several counties, to grant or renew licenses, at any time after the 
said first day of April, for the remainder of the year, whenever 
they shall deem the same expedient. And each person, who shall 
be licensed, as aforesaid, shall pay to the Clerk of the city of 
Boston, or to the Clerk of the County Commissioners of their 
respective counties, the sum of one dollar, which shall be paid by 
said Clerks, to the Treasurers of their respective counties, for the 
use and benefit of said counties." The first words of the section 
give us the old law — all licenses shall be yearly granted or re- 

6 



42 

newed — but, the Mayor and Aldermen, and county commissioners^ 
may grant and renew them, whenever they see fit. The law is 
therefore entirely in the hands of the Mayor and Aldermen, and 
County Commissioners. In the law of 1787, repealed by the act 
of 1832, the time for granting licenses was " the first General Ses- 
sions of the Peace, next after the last Tuesday of June, annually," 
with exceptions for those, who satisfied the Court that they " were 
unavoidably prevented from making application, at the said first 
General Sessions of the Peace, or that the necessity of such license 
had taken place since that time; and, in either case, that the public 
good makes it necessary that the same should be granted.'" Mark 
the difference : the exceptions, in the law of 1787, are defined ; 
the applicants out, of course must show that they were unavoid- 
ably prevented from applying before, or that the necessity has sub- 
sequently arisen ; and, in either case, they are bound to show, that 
the public good makes it necessary. In the act of 1832, nothing 
more is required, than that the Mayor and Aldermen and County 
Commissioners should deem it expedient ! The reasons for such 
deeming may be occult, hidden in the deep recesses of wisdom, 
and utterly unintelligible to every sober citizen ! No man can 
bring these public officers to an issue of reason, on either ground 
of exception, under the abrogated law ; for, though the license 
may not be required by any pressing necessity, nor by a consider- 
ation for the public good, it may be expedient, in the opinion of 
the Mayor and Aldermen, or county commissioners, to gratify 
three of their constituents, by one single act — the retail dram-seller, 
of course ; the wholesale dram-seller, who recommends him ; and 
the owner of the shop ! But what is the fee ? ONE DOLLAR ! 
By the additional act of February, 1820, in addition to the fees 
then paid, four dollars were required to be paid to the Treasurer 
of the Commonwealth, by every retailer, victualler, and confec- 
tioner. This law is also repealed, by the act of 1832, and a re- 
quirement, of ONE DOLLAR substituted in its place. But the 
statute is replete with tender mercies towards the dram-selling 
party, although these tender mercies are terrible cruelties to thou- 
sands beside. There may be some, who can hire a hole in the 
earth, and get trusted for a few gallons of rum, but the dollar is an 
insurmountable objection ! Here is an occasion for the bowels of 
the legislature to yearn towards the very humblest of its devoted 



43 

missionaries, employed in spreading, far and wide, the blessed 
spirit of New England. The legislator, the procreator and pa- 
tron of this abomination is not regardless of this touching appeal, 
and enacts, in the eighth section, " That the Mayor and Alder- 
men, of the city of Boston, may license for the city of Boston, 
and the County Commissioners, in the several counties, may license 
for the towns and districts in their respective counties, in the man- 
ner before provided, as many persons therein as they shall decide 
the public good shall require, as innholders, common victuallers, or 
retailers, or sellers of wine, beer, ale, cider, or any other fermented 
liquor, and no excise or fee shall be required therefor" Is it won- 
derful that the dram-sellers of Massachusetts should have become 
a numerous and powerful army ? Their accoutrements cost but 
little : how liberally the bounty of the legislature is accorded to 
every new recruit ! Here, in sad and sober earnest, we have a 
standing army, with more than all its ordinary horrors, called into 
action and supported by the State, and whose power has already 
been as effectually exerted, for the election and deposition of pub- 
lic officers, as was the power of the Janissaries in Constantinople. 
The Janissaries are no more ! May we not hope and trust, that 
the uncompromising spirit of our pilgrim fathers, reviving, and 
uniting its influence with the exertions of the self-styled temper- 
ance party, will, at no very distant day, enable us to say, the 
dram-sellers are no more ! 

"We have arrived at the ninth section, or the middle of the drunk- 
ard's law. Let us briefly recapitulate : — 1. The limit cut down to 
ten gallons from twenty-eight. 2. A new species of common vict- 
ualler created, obliged to furnish stable room for horses and cattle, 
and suitable provisions for travellers, but neither hay, provender, 
nor lodgings] 3. An abolition of the oath of allegiance, which 
has been a sine qua non for hundreds of years, and the consequent 
admission of aliens, as capable of being licensed. 4. The omis- 
sion to require any bonds, or recognizances of persons licensed to 
sell ardent spirits ; thus changing the law, as it has existed for 
several generations, in a most important particular. 5. The sub- 
stitution of " street, lane, alley, or other place," for " high streets, 
and places of great public resort," in regard to the location of 
public houses, 6. Licenses, not granted, as of old, annually, with 
two special exceptions ; but whenever the Mayor and Aldermen and 



44 

the County Commissioners shall deem it expedient ! 7. Instead 
of four dollars, in addition to the usual fees, the Mayor and Al- 
dermen and the County Commissioners are never to require more 
than ONE DOLLAR, and to license for nothing, if they see fit. 
What equivalent have we thus far, for all this ridiculous confusion, 
on the one hand, and for all this unsparing destruction of so many 
sound and judicious provisions of the law of 1787, on the other 1 
Nothing. It is deeply to be deplored, that the statute book of the 
Commonwealth should have been disgraced by this unwhole- 
some law, bearing a title to which it is not entitled — " An act for 
the due regulation of licensed houses." 



NUMBER XII. 



The ninth section of the act of March has no relation to the 
city. The clerks of the County Commissioners, in the several 
counties, are required annually to transmit to the selectmen of the 
several towns lists of the persons, licensed the year before ; and 
no person shall be licensed, who does not produce a certificate 
from the selectmen of the town, setting forth, that, after "mature 
consideration" they are of opinion that " the public convenience 
requires that the petition be granted" But, if the selectmen re- 
fuse or neglect, the County Commissioners have appellate and final 
jurisdiction of the dram-seller's complaint. The tenth section re- 
quires innholders to be furnished with suitable provisions and 
lodging, stable room, hay, and provender. It also requires, that 
every licensed innholder and common victualler shall "have a board 
or sign, affixed to his or her house, shop, cellar or store, or in some 
conspicuous place, with his or her name at large thereon, and the 
employ ment for which he or she is licensed" To this regulation very 
little attention is paid. The keepers of dram-shops, who have 
not complied with this requirement, have been brought before the 
court, for keeping open on the Sabbath day, on the supposition that 



45 

they were common victuallers ; a supposition grounded on the pal- 
pable impossibility of finding accommodations for travellers and 
their horses and cattle, in a grog-shop ten feet square. Yet these 
offenders have escaped, upon the exhibition of licenses as inn- 
holders. Within a few days, two gentlemen of the first respecta- 
bility have related to us similar results, occurring to themselves, as 
complainants. All this might have been prevented, by the atten- 
tion of a vigilant police, and an enforcement of the law, for the 
respective designation of the innholder and the common victual- 
ler. A vigilant police ! — Can any citizen, familiar with the city, 
forbear to smile, when he reads the eleventh section of this inval- 
uable statute 1 It enacts, much after the manner of former acts, 
" that no innholder and no common victualler shall have or keep in 
or about his or her house, shop, cellar, or store, yards, gardens, or 
dependencies, any dice, cards, bowls, billiards, quoits, or any other 
implements used in gaming ; nor shall suffer any person or per- 
sons, resorting unto his or her house, or other place of business, 
to use or exercise any of said games, or any other unlawful game 
or sport, within his or her house or place of business, or any of 
the dependencies as aforesaid, or places to them belonging, on pain 
of forfeiting the sum of ten dollars for every such offence. And 
every person, convicted of using and exercising any of the games 
as aforesaid, in any house, place of business, or dependencies 
thereof, shall forfeit the sum of ten dollars." May there not 
have been some mistake in engrossing; this section of the law ? 
May it not have been intended to enact, that innholders and com- 
mon victuallers shall keep the implements, used in gaming, in and 
about their premises ? May it not have been intended to compre- 
hend these very matters under the general term, suitable provis- 
ions ? Now and then, some miserable victim is dragged before 
the court, for breach of this part of the statute. If it were not 
for this, the prosecuting officers would be entirely out of practice. 
If implements for gaming were not to be found in such establish- 
ments, we should not receive the visits of certain chevaliers d- 
Industrie, who are in this part of their orbit, especially in the 
summer months. The faces of some of these interesting person- 
ages are very familiar to our citizens. A brace of these black- 
legs, in general appearance, dress, and equipage, nearly resem 
bling each other, taking a northwardly course over Washington 



46 

street, in the morning, and a southwardly course in the afternoon, 
between two notorious establishments, each with his gig-sulkey, 
and. brown pony, which had been deprived of those appendages 
of the head, still undeservedly retained by its proprietor, these 
fellows were seen, as regularly trotting along, one in the trail of 
the other, for several summers past, as though they were paid 
salaries for their services. We can find a sensible reason 
for permitting such an antiquated provision to remain in the act 
of 1832, — it did not directly interfere with the sale of rum ; and 
it might serve to atone, in some degree, for the faults and follies 
of the law. At any rate, it could offend nobody, for its execution 
was not to be expected : when the oath is taken to do one's duty 
in a public office, long established custom has authorized a men- 
tal reservation, as to this and other small matters, whose enforce- 
ment may not be agreeable to the wishes of our constituents. 



NUMBER XIII. 



A more extraordinary spectacle cannot easily be imagined, than 
the young men of a community protecting themselves against the 
evils of intemperance, by the formation of temperance societies, 
on the one hand, and the legislature of the commonwealth, of 
which they are members, enacting laws for their destruction, on 
the other. That such a spectacle should really be presented may 
appear exceedingly improbable, and yet it is absolutely true. 
The legislature of the commonwealth of Massachusetts, in the 
twelfth section of the act of March, 1832, has entirely changed 
the legislation of centuries, in regard to those classes of society, 
which are, from their youth, inexperience, and relative condition, 
most in danger from the allurements to intemperance. We ear- 
nestly solicit the attention of every parent, master and guardian, 
to the law, as it was, and as it is. Without anticipating their sen- 
timents, by any further remark, we give them the law of 1787, 
which has been the law of this commonwealth for ages, and the 



47 

law of 1832, by which the law of 1787 is repealed. We call their 
particular notice to the words in capitals, and to the obvious effect 
of those words. The statute of 1787 enacts, " That no taverncr, 
innkolder, or victualler shall suffer any person to drink to drunk- 
enness or excess, in his or her house, or suffer any minor (travel- 
lers excepted), or servant, to sit drinking there, or to have any 
strong drink there, WITHOUT SPECIAL ALLOWANCE of 
their respective parents, guardians, or masters." The statute of 
1832 enacts, " That no innliolder, and no common victualler, shall 
suffer any person to drink to drunkenness, or excess, in his or her 
house, or place of business ; or suffer any minor (travellers except- 
ed), or servant to drink there, or to have any strong drink there, 
AFTER HAVING BEEN FORBIDDEN by their respective 
parents, guardians , or masters." 

Can it be supposed, for an instant, that the good people of Mas- 
sachusetts approve of this important alteration in the law? How 
few, in all probability, know any thing about it ! How many, to 
a perfect certainty, care nothing about it ! Until March, 1832, 
dram-sellers were, in some measure, restrained from selling ar- 
dent spirits to minors and servants, by the very notorious existence 
of a law, requiring them never so to do, without the special al- 
lowance of the parent, master, or guardian. But the gross ava- 
rice of the dram-selling party has prevented them from leaving a 
remnant of the statute of 1787, which might, interfere with their 
gainful employment. The dram-seller may now, without any fear 
of legal consequences, minister to the ruin of the improvident ser- 
vant, or the beardless boy, — unless he is forbidden by the parent, 
master, or guardian. And how is he to be forbidden 1 The sev- 
en-hundred-headed monster of the city of Boston ! The parent 
will hardly be willing to resort to the public newspaper, and con- 
vey, in the very fact of the prohibition, the notoriety of his do- 
mestic affliction, and the infamy of his child. And, if he adopt 
such a course, it may fail him after all, unless he can shew a priv- 
ity of such notice, on the dramseller's part. This very notoriety 
would also be widely spread, if he should prefer the course of 
personal application to every drunkard^maker, in all the streets, 
lanes, alleys and other places of the city ; and, before he had ar- 
rived at the end of his labors, in one direction, other licentiates 
would have sprung up in another ; so that his toil might be una- 



48 

vailing, after all. Where was the legislature, when the dram- 
selling party took possession of the hall, and enacted this cruel 
and mercenary law 1 The framer of this section cannot, for a 
moment, be supposed to have produced this extraordinary change 
by accident. The phraseology of the old and new sections is 
nearly the same ; and the important words, constituting the differ- 
ence, are evidently introduced with care. The individual, who 
effected this alteration of the law, effected it, of course, with a 
deliberate design ; not a deliberate design to produce all the mise- 
ry, which it is calculated to produce, and which it undoubtedly has 
produced ; but a deliberate design to facilitate the arduous labors 
of the rum-sellers, at any hazard of the reputation, health, and 
happiness of his fellow-beings. Can it be possible, that such a 
man is himself a father ? If so, we ask him, and it is the only 
favor we have to ask of such a man — to suspend his worthy opera- 
tions, for a very brief space, and go with us to the dwelling of some 
unhappy man, whose domestic peace has been murdered by the 
instrumentality of some one or other of these emissaries of de- 
struction. He had, perhaps, an only son, upon whom he had hoped, 
in his old age, to repose the cares and burthens of life. He had 
reared him with a father's care. His education had been the ob- 
ject of his solicitude for years. He had almost attained the age 
of manhood, and was, ere long, to be ushered into the busy walks 
of life with the fairest prospects of usefulness and honor. But, 
alas ! that cloud ol care and abstraction, upon the brow of one'so 
young, and so little involved in the perplexities of the world ; that 
apparent desire to avoid the society of a devoted father, who, until 
of late, had been the object of affectionate respect, are surely the 
harbingers of ill. The anxious father awaits the return of his 
deluded boy. The heavy and unsteady step denotes his approach 
at the midnight hour. He comes ! A look of mingling shame 
and defiance upon his altered brow ! Instead of the filial " good 
night," he scarcely bestows a passing proof of recognition on his 
bewildered parent, as he ascends to his chamber. The father 
lingers, until slumber has locked up the remaining senses of his 
child. He then creeps to his apartment — he approaches the bed 
— it may not be thus — the precept, the example of years cannot 
have been crowned with this miserable result — he leans over his 
unhappy child, and, in the vile tainted breath, realizes all that 



49 

he would not find — the ruin of his hopes, the destruction of his 
only son ! It is most natural that he should endeavor to discover 
the author of his misery, with a design to inflict such punishment 
as the law has prescribed. He seizes the first occasion, and fol- 
lows the steps of the wretched victim through the mazes of the 
city, to the door of the dram-seller, in some distant corner. Pos- 
sessed of sufficient evidence, he instantly applies to the attorney 
of the county ; and from him he learns, that his case is not sus- 
ceptible of any remedy, since he had never forbidden the dram- 
seller to minister to the destruction of his child, and the overthrow 
of his own earthly happiness ! Is the legislature of the Common- 
wealth in session, and is such an abominable law permitted to 
continue 1 There is an apathy, on this highly interesting subject, 
which is absolutely cataleptic. There is no man, however, in this 
community, in any condition of life, which puts him beyond the 
reach of this common curse, this awful domestic calamity. For 
there lives not a man, although he may be exempted from the 
scourge in his own household, who can deny, that, among his 
collateral relations or connexions, there may not be found a 
DRUNKARD. 



NUMBER XIV. 



The thirteenth section of the act of March, 1832, enacts, 
xt that if any innholder or common victualler shall trust, or give 
credit , from time to time, to any person for liquor, to be drunk 
and used, in his or her premises, such innholder, or common victu- 
aller, shall lose and forfeit all such sums, so trusted and credited, 
fyc. n The eighteenth section of the law of 1787, enacts substan- 
tially the same thing, but applies also to retailers, and does not 
limit the operation of the law to cases of liquor to be drunk and 
used in the premises of the seller. Here then is another exam- 
ple of legislative complaisance to the dram-selling party. The 
retailer may now maintain his action in all cases, where he has 

7 



50 

trusted the dram-drinker ; and so may the victualler and innhold- 
er, when the liquor is drunken outside the shop door. But let us 
go on, as fast as we can, to the end of this extraordinary law. 
The fourteenth section corresponds, in all important respects, with 
the seventeenth of the act of 1787. It requires the clerk of the 
city, under the direction of the Mayor and Aldermen, and the 
selectmen of towns, in writing under their hands, to forbid licens- 
ed persons from selling spirituous or strong liquors to the descrip- 
tion of individuals, set forth in the statute. The fifteenth section 
prescribes the form of action for penalties ; the application of those 
penalties ; and the alternative of imprisonment, in case of inabil- 
ity to pay. The record of offenders, under the fourteenth section, 
whom the dram-sellers have been forbidden to indulge, by the city 
clerk, under the direction of the Mayor and Aldermen, would be 
well worth the inspection of the curious ; and the penalties, recov- 
ered throughout the Commonwealth, for breaches of this act,, have 
no doubt been safely invested, without the necessity of appointing 
special committees for that object. The sixteenth section repeals 
the law of 1787, and all former laws on that subject. In this act, 
the dram-seller and the drunkard have the chart for their profitable 
voyage ; and, as the compass is set by the legislature, they are int 
no imminent danger of missing their way. By the sixteenth sec- 
tion of the act of 1787, the selectmen of towns were required to* 
post up " in the houses and shops of all taverners, innholders and 
retailers, a list of the names of all persons, reputed common 
drunkards, or common tipplers, or common gamesters, mispending 
their time and estate in such houses" This provision is altogether 
omitted, in the act of 1832. Undoubtedly, its enforcement would 
be exceedingly burthensome and disagreeable to all parties. The 
mere labor would be enormous of posting up these names, in seven 
hundred licensed houses in the city of Boston, correcting them 
from day to day, and noting the stelligeri, or dead drunkards, as 
they occasionally drop off, one after another, from week to week. 
We have shown, by the certificate of Mr. Badlam, that, in a single 
year, ending Dec. 15, 1832, four hundred and fifty-three common 
drunkards were committed to the House of Correction ; add to 
these the common tipplers and common gamesters, and what an 
enormous catalogue should we have to post up, in obedience to the 
law, which has been so recently repealed. Not a few of the com- 



51 

mon tipplers are members of very respectable professions ; and, as 
the tendency of this act of the legislature is to patronize the sale 
of rum, to remove the scruples and allay the fears of every citizen, 
who has a bias towards intemperance, and x to facilitate the pro- 
gress of drunkenness throughout the Commonwealth, it was per- 
fectly consistent to omit such a troublesome provision. It was 
omitted, in the same spirit, which taught the framer to pass by the 
nineteenth section also of the act of 1787, which directs ty thing, 
men " to inspect all licensed houses, and to inform of all disor- 
ders and misdemeanors, which they shall discover, or knoiv to be 
committed in them" 

We have now finished our examination of the act of March, 
1832, entitled " An act for the due regulation of licensed houses." 
In this examination, we have been actuated, by no other motive 
than a desire to promote the public good. We believe, more 
firmly than at the outset, that the existing license law is a wicked 
and unprincipled statute. We cannot believe that there is a 
member of the legislature of Massachusetts, who will presume to 
defend it from the severest animadversion. Has it not destroyed 
several, among the most wholesome provisions of the act of 1787 ? 
Does it not establish principles subversive of the peace and order 
of society ? Are not the whole text and context of this act, its 
very tenor and phraseology demonstrative of the truth, that it was 
prepared by some person, intimately connected with the dram- 
selling party, and deeply interested in the traffic in rum ? Can 
any Christian, or any moral man, hesitate, for a moment, to pro- 
nounce that section, which removes the safeguard, provided by 
the law of 1787, for minors and servants, a cruel and inhuman 
provision ? Is there any subject of deeper interest, at the present 
moment, upon earth, or more immediately connected with our 
happiness, in a present and future state, than the subject of tem- 
perance 1 We have no Utopian fancies upon this interesting 
theme. It has never entered into our highest and holiest hopes, 
that universal temperance was to be achieved by legislation. 

But it requires no wizzard to foretel, that intemperance is not 
likely to relax its fatal hold upon the people, while it may secure- 
ly count upon the patronage of the Senate and House of Repre- 
sentatives of the Commonwealth. This glorious result, the re- 
moval of that terrible scourge, which is hurrying its thousands 



52 

annually from the earth, can only be expected through an entire 
regeneration of public opinion. This desirable event, if we do 
not strangely mistake the signs of the times, is already under the 
process of gradual evolution. We have only to travel back a very 
short space, in the path of time, some very few years, to recal the 
full measure of all that derision and contempt, showered down 
upon the earlier combinations for the suppression of intemperance. 
The drunkard jocularly drank success to their efforts. The dram- 
seller chuckled over their impotent exertions, as he put the wages 
of iniquity into his till. The man of the world, the merely in- 
different spectator, smiled at the wild and romantic aspirations of 
the " self-styled temperance party." Even among the wise and 
good, there were not a few, who cherished not the slightest ex- 
pectation of their success. A more remarkable progress has rare- 
ly been made in any cause, at any period, or by any body of men. 
In addition to a very large and highly respectable number, 
throughout the United States, who are entirely disposed to promote 
the object in hand, " fifteen hundred thousand people (says the 
fifth report of the American Temperance Society) now abstain 
from the use of ardent spirit, and from the furnishing of it for the 
use of others : there are more than four thousand temperance so- 
cieties ; more than fifteen hundred distilleries have been stopped ; 
more than four thousand merchants have ceased to traffic in the 
poison ; four thousand five hundred drunkards have ceased to use 
intoxicating drinks." The efforts of these societies are unremit- 
ting. Their chief object is the illumination of the public mind, 
by the dispersion of circulars, public journals, and reports, and 
by the employment of intelligent and able missionaries. Their 
success, in God's good time, is no longer the problem that it was. 
Their numbers are constantly increasing ; while the drunkard 
and drunkard-maker are becoming more and more the objects of 
contempt and disgust. 



LB D '05 



